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Verdict: A funny, bruising, eighteen-year portrait of two queer women who are more than friends and never quite lovers, held back by leads many readers find hard to spend 350 pages with and an ending that leaves a lot unsaid.
Best for: Readers who want sapphic literary fiction about friendship, family and unspoken love rather than a romance arc, and who can enjoy characters they would not want to be friends with.
Heat level: ★★★☆☆ (2.5/5 — present but occasional; romance.io assigns no steam band)
Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.5/5 — a 3.59 Goodreads average from a readership that splits over whether the leads are worth the trouble)
Tropes: Chosen family, friendship that is also a love story, unrequited love, queer co-parenting, all-girls school, dual timeline, estrangement and reconciliation, queer awakening, found community, epistolary frame.
Chosen Family by Madeleine Gray is a standalone literary novel from the Sydney-based author of Green Dot, first published in Australia in October 2025 and released in the US by Mariner Books in July 2026 — a story set across eighteen years in Sydney, in which two brilliant, friendless girls meet at a posh all-girls school and spend the rest of their lives being each other’s rescue and each other’s wound, until one of them walks out on the family they built together.
It holds a 3.59 average across roughly 6,400 Goodreads ratings, a 3.79 on StoryGraph with a low 3% did-not-finish rate, and a shelf of author blurbs from both hemispheres. The number hides a real split: people either love these two women or cannot stand them. Both halves of that split are worth understanding before you start.
What Is Chosen Family About?
Chosen Family is literary fiction first and a love story second, and it never becomes a genre romance. It flirts with friends-to-lovers without ever committing to it. There is no meet-cute, no third-act breakup engineered for a reunion, and no guaranteed happily-ever-after. What it offers instead is the long view: school, university, careers, share houses, gay bars and parenthood, with the question of what these two actually are to each other sitting in every room.
Eve Bowman arrives at the school confident and new, and carries a feeling for Nell she cannot name in a climate where naming it would cost her. Nell Argall has already given up on fitting in and assumes nobody will ever choose her. The book opens with an unsent letter from Eve in 2023, then alternates between the present-day rupture and the past that produced it. The perspective leans heavily toward Eve, which buys the book its comedy and its self-deception — and costs it Nell, who several readers wanted far more of.
What Makes This Sapphic Literary Novel Work
- The school chapters: The most consistently praised stretch of the book. Reviewers single out its handling of adolescent cruelty and the fear of being different, and several say it read like their own teenage years.
- The humour: Nearly half of StoryGraph reviewers tag it funny, and bloggers keep describing laughing out loud in a book about betrayal.
- The structure: The dual timeline builds toward a single central betrayal, and readers credit it with making a character-driven novel read with a mystery’s pull.
- The supporting cast: Tae, Marcus and seven-year-old Lake give the book its warmth, and at least one reviewer liked them more than the leads.
- The queer community it draws: Reviewers call it a love letter to queer Sydney and to families built outside the rules, and readers who grew up queer in less accepting years say it hit close to home.
Book Synopsis
Nell Argall is twelve and has already decided that the girls at her expensive Sydney school will never like her. She is clever, strange and alone, and she has made a kind of peace with it. Then Eve Bowman arrives — loud, self-assured, just as odd in her own way — and for the first time Nell has someone. The friendship that follows is total, the kind that shuts out everyone else, and it is shadowed from the start by something Eve feels and cannot say.
A newcomer shifts the balance, cruelty travels fast through a girls’ school, and the thing between Nell and Eve fractures in a way neither of them fully admits to. They find their way back to each other as adults, in a Sydney full of share houses, queer nights out and friends who become family, and together they decide to raise a daughter, Lake, as an experiment in doing family differently.
Then, when Lake is seven, Nell abruptly walks away, and Eve is left holding a child, a household and eighteen years of history she suddenly cannot read. The novel begins with a letter Eve never sends and moves back and forth through time toward the moment it all came apart. The question underneath every chapter is whether the old damage between them was ever about friendship at all — and whether understanding it now can change anything.
My Review
The best thing about Chosen Family is its nerve. Gray writes a relationship between two women that refuses every available label — friendship, romance, co-parenting, rivalry — and she refuses to let the book tidy it into one of them. That refusal is the point, and it is often genuinely moving. The school chapters in particular are sharp, funny and painful in the way the best coming-of-age writing is: the pecking order, the humiliation, the sense that being different is a thing everyone can smell on you.
The second strength is tone. This is a book about betrayal, shame, homophobia and a parent abandoning a child, and it is also frequently very funny. The dual timeline is handled with control: the opening letter tells you something went badly wrong, and the novel spends its length on how.
Where it struggles is the people, and this is not one reader’s gripe — it is the dominant complaint in the low-star reviews. Readers call both leads selfish, frustrating and unlikeable, and StoryGraph’s own numbers back them up: only 29% of reviewers say the characters are loveable, while 93% say their flaws are the main focus. The plot runs on the two women not talking to each other, which several readers found artificial rather than tragic. The dialogue draws complaints for sounding scripted, one reviewer comparing it to Dawson’s Creek, and the pop-culture references and occasional anachronisms pull a few readers out. Lake speaks older than seven, and at least one reviewer did not buy Nell’s departure given how much she loves her daughter.
One expectation to reset: the US packaging and some blurbs call it sexy and romantic, and some readers came in expecting a love story that lands. It does not land in the way romance readers mean. The desire drives everything, but the ending is open, and a common complaint even among readers who enjoyed it is that it left too much unresolved. If “love story” is what drew you, recalibrate toward literary fiction; if you were worried this would be another will-they-won’t-they with a bow on it, relax.
My honest note: A sharp, funny, honest novel about queer love that will not fit a category, carried by its wit and undercut by leads who test your patience. If you need to like the people you read about, this will be a hard 350 pages. If you can love a book for how clearly it sees difficult people, it rewards you.
| Element | In Chosen Family |
|---|---|
| Central relationship | Eve Bowman & Nell Argall — school best friends turned co-parents, with an unspoken love between them |
| Core tropes | Chosen family, unrequited love, queer co-parenting, dual timeline, estrangement, queer awakening |
| Setting | Sydney across eighteen years — an all-girls school from 2006, then share houses, queer nightlife and a present-day 2023 |
| Heat level | 2.5/5 — present but occasional; no romance.io steam band |
| Series | Standalone — Gray’s second novel after Green Dot; open rather than tied-up ending |
| Content notes | Bullying, homophobia and lesbophobia, toxic friendship, death of a parent, pregnancy, suicidal thoughts, outing, drug use |
How Spicy Is Chosen Family?
Low-to-middling. romance.io does index the book — tagged queer romance and contemporary, with 31 ratings — but it assigns no steam band — its readers are not cataloguing it as a spice read. The publisher’s own description leans on the word sexy, one blogger describes the sex as explicit, and yet most Goodreads reviewers barely mention it at all. Put together, that reads as frank scenes that appear occasionally inside a much larger story, not heat as a draw.
The thing worth knowing in advance is not the sex but the emotional content: sustained bullying, homophobia, a toxic friendship and a parent walking out on a child. No reviewer I found flags anything more graphic than that. If you want a literary sapphic novel at a similar temperature, Cantoras sits a notch warmer and Our Wives Under the Sea a notch cooler.
Who Should Read This Book?
You’ll likely love it if: you read sapphic fiction for character rather than plot, you want a relationship between women that refuses easy labels, you like dark humour carrying heavy material, and you are happy with an ending that trusts you to decide.
You may want to skip it if: you need to like the leads, you find plots driven by characters refusing to talk to each other exasperating, you want a romance with an HEA, or you are not in the mood for bullying, homophobia and family abandonment on the page.
In short: a clever, funny, painful book about loving the wrong way for a long time — rewarding if you can live with its people.
What Readers Are Actually Saying (September 2026)
The discourse around Chosen Family is a literary-fiction discourse, not a BookTok one. I found no organic TikTok moment for the title, and Reddit search was unreachable during my sweep, so I cannot report a footprint there either way. What it has is the ordinary machinery of a follow-up to a bestseller: publication in three territories in nine months, a Goodreads giveaway in January, book club shelving and published discussion guides, and a readership carried over from Green Dot. The US Mariner edition’s Amazon listing carries one outlet review — the Sydney Morning Herald, which calls it “attuned to the subtle negotiations that shape friendships and first loves” — and otherwise author blurbs, including Kristen Arnett and Holly Brickley. I found no Publishers Weekly or Kirkus review attached to it. Amazon files it under LGBTQ+ Genre Fiction and, tellingly, satire.
The audiobook is narrated by Madeleine Withington, running about 10 hours 23 minutes, first released by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in January 2026, with a US audio edition arriving alongside the July hardcover. I found no listener commentary on the narration itself.
Prefer audio? Listen to Chosen Family on Libro.fm — the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.
Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The emotional hit, first — 85% of StoryGraph reviewers tag it emotional, and “love letter to the queer community” is the phrase that keeps resurfacing in different words. Then the humour, which readers find surprising given the subject. The school years draw specific praise, and Australian readers mention the local nostalgia. Comparisons to Sally Rooney’s Normal People come up repeatedly, usually as a queer version of the same push and pull. Notably, some readers who disliked Eve and Nell still rated the book well, which tells you the unlikeability is partly the design.
What readers argue about and complain about: The characters, above everything. Reviewers call both leads selfish and frustrating, and one StoryGraph reviewer spends an entire review on how much Eve’s adult self disappointed her. Second: communication. The rupture hinges on things neither woman will say, and readers split between finding that true to life and finding it a contrivance. Third: the dialogue and the references — scripted-sounding exchanges, a child who talks like an adult, and pop-culture name-drops that date or distract. The co-parenting plot draws doubts about plausibility, and one reviewer wanted far more of Nell’s inner life, especially the mental-health hints the book raises and leaves. Then the genuine split: whether the ending is brave or unfinished. A clear group found it unsatisfying and loose; others read it as the only honest place for this story to stop.
The standalone question worth asking first: Chosen Family is a complete standalone and needs nothing else. It leaves the question of what Nell and Eve are to each other open, so read it expecting an open door rather than a wedding. If you like it, Gray’s debut Green Dot is the obvious next step, and its reception is almost identical: 3.62 across roughly 40,500 Goodreads ratings — which suggests that if Gray’s voice works for you here, it will work there too.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Chosen Family a romance?
Not in the genre sense. It is literary fiction about a friendship that is also a love story, and it has no guaranteed happily-ever-after. Desire drives the plot, but readers looking for a romance arc often find the ending unresolved.
How spicy is Chosen Family?
About 2.5/5. romance.io indexes it without assigning a steam band, and most reader reviews barely mention sex. There are frank scenes, but heat is not the point of the book.
Is Chosen Family a standalone?
Yes. It is a complete standalone and Madeleine Gray’s second novel after Green Dot, which you do not need to have read first.
Is there an audiobook of Chosen Family?
Yes. It is narrated by Madeleine Withington and runs about 10 hours 23 minutes, released by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in January 2026, with a US audio edition following in July 2026.
Does Chosen Family have a happy ending?
Not a tidy one. The novel leaves much of the relationship open, and a clear group of readers found the ending unsatisfying while others felt it was the honest choice.
If You Loved Chosen Family, Read These Next
If the eighteen-year sweep and the family of queer women built outside the rules is what held you, Cantoras does the same across decades in dictatorship-era Uruguay, with a warmer view of its people. For the early-2000s nostalgia and a first love that keeps pulling two women back together, Long Island Girls is the closest 2026 match. And if it was the portrait of two women failing to reach each other that stayed with you, Our Wives Under the Sea is quieter, stranger and just as sad.
For more in this register, browse our best sapphic fiction books or the full Book Reviews collection.
The Bottom Line
Chosen Family is a novel that wants to write a queer relationship too big for any single word, and it mostly earns that ambition. The school years are sharp, the humour is real, and the structure pulls you through a character novel like a thriller. It is also built on leads a large share of readers find exhausting, a rupture that depends on silence, and an ending that leaves the love story open. Whether that trade is worth it depends on how much you need to like the people on the page — but the reader who does not will find one of the more honest books about queer friendship and family of the year. Check Chosen Family on Amazon →
The Eikna Overall Ranking
On the Eikna scale, Chosen Family ranks as a sharp, divisive sapphic literary novel — funny and emotionally honest, held back by leads readers struggle to like, and best approached for the friendship and the humour rather than a romance.
The Evidence Scorecard
Overall ★★★★☆ 3.5/5
- ✓ 3.59 average across 6,400 Goodreads ratings
- ✓ 3.79 on StoryGraph from 1,693 reviews
- ✓ Only 3% did-not-finish on StoryGraph
- ✓ A third of Goodreads ratings sit at three stars
Romance ★★★☆☆ 3.2/5
- ✓ Unspoken love drives the whole plot
- ✓ Refuses friendship-or-romance labels on purpose
- ✓ Normal People comparisons recur
- ✓ No romance arc or guaranteed HEA
Characters ★★★★☆ 3.6/5
- ✓ Flaws a main focus for 93% of reviewers
- ✓ Supporting cast wins over some readers
- ✓ Eve’s self-deception drawn with precision
- ✓ Only 29% call the characters loveable
Writing ★★★★☆ 3.9/5
- ✓ Funny tagged by nearly half of readers
- ✓ Dual timeline handled with control
- ✓ School chapters consistently praised
- ✓ Dialogue and references draw complaints
Emotional Impact ★★★★☆ 4.1/5
- ✓ 85% of StoryGraph readers tag it emotional
- ✓ Queer adolescence lands close to home
- ✓ Nell’s departure gives the present real weight
- ✓ Silence-driven plot frustrates some readers
Heat Level ★★★☆☆ 2.5/5
- ✓ Frank scenes appear occasionally
- ✓ Publisher copy leans on sexy
- ✓ Most reviewers barely mention it
- ✓ No romance.io steam band assigned
Ending ★★★☆☆ 3/5
- ✓ Complete standalone, nothing left to buy
- ✓ Letter bookends give it shape
- ✓ Some readers call it the honest choice
- ✓ Many find it loose and unsatisfying
Re-read Value ★★★☆☆ 3.4/5
- ✓ Structure rewards knowing the betrayal
- ✓ Sydney detail invites a nostalgic return
- ✓ Book club guides show discussion value
- ✓ Hard leads discourage a second visit
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